FRANK TALK: A chubby Greek tragedy

Thursday

Embarrassing consequences can lurk behind virtually any action we take, no matter how seemingly inconsequential it might appear to be.

Embarrassing consequences can lurk behind virtually any action we take, no matter how seemingly inconsequential it might appear to be.

The ancient Greeks would ascribe such happenings to fate. Their trials with fate usually ended up providing material for tragic plays involving all sorts of killing and other unseemly events.

But it works with embarrassment, too.

If it’s your fate to be embarrassed, then that’s your fate.

Take the following cautionary tale.

It’s a “tale.”

It’s not as if this actually happened.

So, this cautionary tale involves a man having to buy a new belt for his pants.

His former belt had finally given out following years of faithful service. Fortunately, for modesty’s sake, it didn't succumb during the line of duty.

The leather attaching the buckle gave way during the act of joining the belt around the man's waist for the several millionth time.

The belt’s demise had immediate ramifications. The man's belt in this cautionary tale was no mere adornment.

It had a definite function, for this cautionary-tale guy can be described as somewhat “big-boned.”

The belt faithfully kept the man's pants from falling down around his ankles.

The importance of that simple function cannot be overstated, particularly when interacting with the public during the course of a work day.

Thus the man hurried to a nearby department store after first changing into an older pair of pants belonging to a bygone era of less personal girth. These pants didn't require a belt to frustrate the laws of gravity, though they made it difficult for the man to take a deep breath.

He perused the belts on display in the store's men's section, and selected one that seemed appropriate.

It was black leather, reasonably priced and appeared to meet the requirements, the man having self-consciously looped it around his waist in a trial run.

The man didn't go to the trouble of actually inserting the belt into his pants' belt loops. He just wrapped it around his middle to ascertain that it was qualified to fill the position.

If this sequence were being filmed, his failure to test the belt in the loops would have warranted a close-up of the belt's width vs. the space afforded by the individual loops, accompanied by a dramatic swelling of French horns foreshadowing disaster.

For you see, the man discovered the following day that the belt was almost too wide to fit the loops, necessitating a 10-minute grappling match to successfully circumnavigate the man's belly.

The man was late for work so he decided to put off exchanging the belt.

The man was not thinking ahead.

Or was fate simply having its way?

For while he was not an alleged criminal, or a lawyer, police officer, court officer, judge, probation officer, or court staff member in any shape or form, he was due in district court that day.

Perhaps it was in a journalistic capacity. It's difficult to say since this is a cautionary tale, and not an actual event.

He remembered too late that district court patrons are required to remove their belts as part of the metal-detector-search process upon entrance.

As this is a cautionary tale, it might be best to leave the embarrassing consequences of buying a too-wide belt to an intelligent reader's imagination.

It’s not necessary to paint any pictures of our protagonist clutching his drooping pants to his waist with one hand while desperately using the other to try and fit the too-wide belt back into the too-narrow loops.

All this while an impatient throng collected behind him, anxious to go about their pressing business with the judicial system.

But, once again, this is a tale.

It's not as if this really happened.

— Editor Frank Mulligan can be reached at fmulligan@wickedlocal.com. This is a classic column. Not because it's necessarily any good but because it appeared in a prior edition.

Community Info

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
Wicked Local Rochester ~ 182 Standish Avenue, Plymouth, MA 02360 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service